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The
definition of syncope is: a brief lapse in conscience
caused by a transient cerebral hypoxia (lack of oxygen).
Using the theme "brief lapse in consciousness," this
piece focuses on the audience's perception and the interference
in the visual reception. It explores the use of non-traditional
light sources to illuminate the body and face. The illumination
of the body creates a dramatic contrast of light vs. dark.
The darkness becomes just as important as the light in
the visual field. Development of this piece involved learning
how to control the visual field with movement and having
the dancers manipulate the audience's spatial perception.
I learned how this process works by rehearsing in a dark
studio with flashlights. The flashlights can be used to
light the whole body or specific parts of the body. The
images of floating body parts create a magically surreal
mood. It is sometimes difficult for the audience to perceive
what is real and what is an illusion, creating brief lapses
with reality or consciousness. The music adds to the overall
atmosphere of the piece because of its low and calming
effect.

Uruguayan
writer Cristina Peri Rossi’s first book, El
libro de mis primos (The Book of My Cousins, 1969),
is compared with her later novel, La nave de los
locos (The Ship of Fools, 1984), to suggest how
an authoritarian society can be criticized through parody
and then rebuilt on the foundations of a philosophy of
ambiguity, similar to Lyotard’s vision of the postmodern.
Dissatisfaction with the power structures of tradition
and validation of marginality are characteristics of
such vision, which inscribe Peri Rossi in the postmodern
current of Latin-American literature. The postmodern
condition agrees with the major conclusions drawn from
both works. First, tradition is viewed as a decadent
state of affairs that needs to be brushed aside, for
it does not respond to genuine human concerns and, in
fact, has frustrated and destroyed them. Parody is the
tool used to dispose of tradition. Secondly, there has
to be an acceptance of the margins, of the other. This
presupposes a tolerant ambiguity of inclusion that is
capable of rebuilding instead of destroying, and does
so by using the very materials of the other. What El
Libro destroys La nave rebuilds. El
Libro’s mission is to do away with the atrophied
waste of patriarchal order, while La nave seeks
to fill up the resulting void with one possible solution:
the conciliation of opposing forces by a tolerant philosophy
of inclusion.

The marine mollusk Aplysia responds to noxious
stimulation with a stereotyped arousal reaction that includes
escape locomotion, increased heart rate and sensitization
of defensive reflexes. Although previous studies have shown
that serotonin (5-HT) is important for most of these behavioral
responses, it is still unclear how the 5-HT system is activated
in response to noxious stimuli. To address this question,
I used a specific staining of the 5-HT neurons in the living
central nervous system (CNS) that allowed me to (1) systematically
record their electrical activity following a noxious stimulus,
and (2) trace their projections using the neuronal tracer
Neurobiotin. I found that in response to tail-nerve shock,
a procedure known to mimic a noxious tail stimulus, the
vast majority of 5-HT neurons increased their firing rate
for several minutes and became more excitable. 5-HT neurons
were found to project toward various peripheral targets
such as the gill, heart, body wall, tail, siphon, head,
and tentacles as well as to other ganglia in the CNS. This
study shows that the Aplysia 5-HT system is globally
and persistently activated after a noxious stimulus. Such
an activation might serve to synchronize the different
aspects of the arousal reaction in Aplysia.

The
stereotype threat theory (Steele 1992, 1997) examines
the underperformance of women in mathematical domains and
minorities in academic domains and attempts to explain
these trends as being due to situational anxiety. Research
indicates that the performance differential between genders
and ethnicities can be best understood in terms of stereotype
threat activation rather than biological determinants.
The anxiety a stereotyped individual feels when confronted
with an academic task is compounded by a societal expectation
of failure. However, not much research currently exists
on the mediating effects of personal belief in the stereotype.
The goal of this study was to examine whether anxiety was
correlated with a stronger belief in the stereotype among
college-aged participants. Individuals from stigmatized
groups demonstrated a significantly greater likelihood
to experience higher anxiety levels if they believed the
negative stereotype and that higher anxiety level correlated
with lower test scores. These results provide general support
for Steele’s stereotype threat hypothesis.

In the ceramic work of Scandinavian artist, Arne Ase,
water-soluble materials such as titanium sulphate, cobalt
chloride, tungsten oxide, molybdenum chloride, and selenium
chloride are utilized as decorative elements on his porcelain
forms. Such chemicals are not of common use in the ceramic
arts because of the expense of the raw materials and the
possible hazards of working with these chemicals. However,
these colorants can create subtle yet breathtaking effects,
including hues of black, blue, yellow, or pink, that blend
with the surface of the clay, as if the porcelain vessel
were a watercolor painting. It is his research, which I
have expanded upon and integrated into my own ceramic work.
Additional colorants have been tested, including iron sulphate,
cobalt sulphate, and copper sulphate. A different firing
atmosphere has been incorporated in the research, as well
as two porcelain bodies, to expand the palette of colors
that can be obtained. The most successful test results
have been applied to my porcelain forms, which include
a wide variety of functional objects, in order to contribute
to my ongoing exploration of personal expression through
the medium of clay.